8/8: Disney Days/Arabian Nights

[Al Lutz]

Kevin has an Arabian Nights Dinner Show Review, a Walt Disney World Update, a Mousecatraz Review, and More... Discuss it all here!

[sir clinksalot]

Nice update Kevin.

I kind of skipped the Arabian Nights thing because I had no interest, but the pictures of the show were interesting.

Thanks fo the Disney update. I just hope the castle isn't under tarps when we are there in October. I loved the ToT picture, it does seem to fit with the Morrocan theme. Nice catch.

[BDBopper]

Great update Kevin! Very informative and packed with all sorts of great stuff as usual.

Anybody ever been to that event, MouseFest that Kevin was talking about at the end of the article? Sounds interesting.

[kcnole]

Nice article and thanks for the arabian nights review. Now I know not to waste my time on that. I've considered going several times but if its as lame as it looked in the article, then my money is better spent elsewhere.

[tloolgb]

That smacks of being avant-garde, something that almost NEVER works in the theme park setting (paging Anne Hamburger!!)

I agree.

[cellarhound]

I still think the surge in prices are not spurred by one upmanship this time... I am confident that they are due to energy prices... Most analysts agree with me...

Rising U.S. prices point to grassroots inflation
Reuters 8/8/06

FOOD, ENERGY AND DISNEY WORLD

Although official measures of inflation may exclude food and energy in their "core" assessments, those volatile components are gobbling up much of consumers' paychecks

The price of a barrel of crude oil, which is refined into gasoline, plastics and other fuels, has topped $77.00 this week, bumping average pump prices above $3 per gallon.

"Now we have energy costs seeping into other sectors," said Jared Bernstein, an economist at the Washington, D.C.-based Economic Policy Institute. "That's why we see the core measure accelerating in recent months."

Corporations such as Kellogg Co., Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. and Walt Disney Co. are struggling with higher energy costs and have announced they will pass them along to consumers as price increases.

"If the consumer believes that the price of something is going up for a fair reason they're more willing to pay for it," said Lehman Bros. economist Drew Matus. "The most recent surge in inflation can in part be attributed to a pass-through effect from energy prices."

[kcnole]

People forget that the corporations have to suffer with the high energy bills as well. Disney is basically running a city within their confines. Can you even imagine what their energy bill must be like? I'm not surprised to see prices raise.

[Malin]

Cool article Kevin

Thanks for pointing out the continued maintenance problems WDW continues to ignore.Also it wouldn't hurt to fix that Hollywood sign on the Tower of Terror

Im a bit suprised to not see you mention another recent change WDW is doing at the Magic Kingdom,with its day time parade.Would of loved to hear your coments on Disney repackaging its already existing parade by adding new music from the Tokyo Disneyland parade as well as making slight changes to the floats.Next time maybe hey

[TDSTOM]

WOW Kevin! talk about information overload. That was some great stuff there.

When I was at WDW in June, I tried to get my haircut at BBB, but alas, they refused this 40 year old man!!

Great stuff!


Thomas

[Alchimedes]

Very informative Kevin, thank you.

[CarolKoster]

We've been to Hoop Dee Doo Revue and Spirit of Aloha at Disney World. Of those two we absolutely love Hoop! Reading Kevin's review of Arabian Nights, I'm convinced: Sticking with the Disney dinner shows is the best way to go.

Great news summary Kevin!

My husband Rich and I went to a very early incarnation of Mouse Fest in the year 2000 or so. Photos and a description of it are on Deb Wills' All Ears Net.com website. Basically what this is is a mega-'Net Meet, but instead of with one online entity it's with a lot of online entities meeting as the same time and place as yours. The one in the year 2000 attracted 150, mostly those who frequented rec.arts.disney.parks on Usenet. Since then the event has grown! The hard part about attending Mouse Fest for some parents is that it occurs while schools are still in session. But if that is not of a concern for you and the time and resources are available for you, do check out Mouse Fest.

[Brandis]

After reading the description to Arabian Nights, I think I know where Disney got their inspiration for the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show at Disneyland Resort Paris. However, it seems that Disney was able to add their special magic to a rather generic concept. I think the show in Paris is great, I have seen it at least 10 times, but Arabian Nights sounds rather boring.

Regarding "Finding Nemo: The Musical", this sounds a bit like the Little Mermaid Show in Tokyo DisneySea. But I have to disagree with Kevin about the concept of showing the puppeteers not fitting a Disney show. In Tokyo, the puppeteers are also very visible but it doesn't distract one bit from the show.

Marc

[danyoung]

Thanks for the update, Kevin. Count me among those who won't miss the bland monotone of the human delivery on Living With the Land. It was most times embarrassing to sit through the uninteresting and uninterested spiel of a bored CM. Only once did I have a great presenter, and that was a 50-ish gentleman on the first boat out in the morning. He asked us if we'd mind if he went off of the script and just talked to us. It was very interesting and informative, the same kind of approach that they now use on Kilimanjaro Safari's. Too bad they couldn't go in that direction.

[columnwest]

When I first heard the news about a show with puppets in the dark, I was happy they were going to reproduce the magic found in the Little Mermaid show, really a delightful little gem. But here suddenly I see they will not always hide the puppeteers (my wife says this will make them like Broadway's Avenue Q), and I'm suddenly worried. That smacks of being avant-garde, something that almost NEVER works in the theme park setting (paging Anne Hamburger!!)

I certainly agree that "Avenue Q" is pretty avant-garde for Disney, but the idea of being able to see the puppeteers actually exists already in "The Lion King" on Broadway (Zazu, Timon and others), and in the "Aladdin" show at DCA (Iago). I think that if you had visible puppeteers wearing scenery-blending clothes for non-speaking parts (like schools of fish, for example), it could work pretty well. I don't expect that Disney would just put kids out there in black t-shirts and jeans, essentially without costuming and without an attempt hiding the person doing the talking (a la "Avenue Q"). I could be wrong of course, but we'll have to wait and see.

[danyoung]

Not to mention that this would not be the first time that they've had a puppeteer out in plain sight in a Disney park show - that honor would go to the Hunchback show in D/MGM, with Djali, the goat.